


The Dark Side of Cadre Prime (Part 2 of 2)

by pallasite



Series: Behind the Gloves [79]
Category: Babylon 5, Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms
Genre: Backstory, Betrayal, Cadre Prime, Canon Compliant, Canonical Child Abuse, Child Abuse, Children, Emotional Abuse, Fix-It, Gen, Growing up in the cadre system, Hazing, Psi Corps, School, Telepath culture, Worldbuilding, psychological abuse, telepaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 11:06:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12680634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasite/pseuds/pallasite
Summary: Cadre Prime was the most elite of all cadres in the Corps. Those twenty-five, maybe thirty students each year - out of the whole Corps of millions - were hand-picked for the most prestigious jobs upon reaching adulthood. They became high-level administrators. They became teachers. They became whatever they wanted.But they had also survived a system that was, at times, uniquely abusive.Part 1 ishere.The prologue ofBehind the Glovesishere- please read!





	The Dark Side of Cadre Prime (Part 2 of 2)

**Author's Note:**

> What is this series? Where are the acknowledgements, table of contents and universe timelines? See [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10184558/chapters/22620590).
> 
> If you like _Behind the Gloves_ and would like to send me an email, I can be reached at counterintuitive at protonmail dot com. Do you have questions? Would you like to tell me what you like about this project? Email me!
> 
> I also have an [ask blog](https://behind-the-gloves.tumblr.com/), a [writing blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pallasite-writes), and a "P3 life" Tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/p3-life) with funny anecdotes. :)

To continue from Part 1, where I left off:

  * It is not clear exactly when these abusive practices began, but it seems they started with the formation of Cadre Prime, at the very beginning of the Corps, in 2156, when Vacit took over.[1]


  * It's also not entirely clear to me why no one in the whole cadre - at age thirteen, maybe twelve chronologically - hasn't figured out that the monitors are their teachers.[2] Some of these children - like Brett and Bester - are P12s. Even with the teachers' voices disguised under the costumes, the students should be able to feel their minds...? But they _are_ fooled - every one, and they guess that the monitors are AIs, are androids, even though humanoid robots are illegal in the Earth Alliance.



         It seems hard to believe they would _all_ be unable to see what was in front of them, but then again, these children were raised in a very isolated and tightly controlled environment. When the teachers order them to take off their clothes, they just do it, no matter how much they resent it. ("Al might resent them, but there was never any question of obeying them. They were a fact of life.")

          Unlike in other places in canon where something got mixed up and it's just an error, I don't think this is. I think they were raised in an environment so tightly controlled that they couldn't even see what was, at least telepathically, right in front of them. As I've explained [elsewhere](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12272781), "telepathy is complicated," and what you _expect_ to sense, even what you expect _to be able_ to sense, has a tremendous effect on what you actually can.

         And so it's in this state of mind that the children are one day marched naked across the quad to the "graduation" ritual. The older students and staff who see them - and ritually mock them - know what's going on, but for some reason, the students in Bester's cadre seem to be unaware this ritual even exists. (That piece is harder to explain, and I think it's a writing gap - this piece of the ritual happens out in the open every year. How do they not know that older students from Cadre Prime are marched by "the Grins" across the quad naked at some point, even if they don't know why, or what happens after that? Canon says elsewhere that Bester has seen older students being punished and being made to stand "statue time" in the quad (and largely ignored them) - it seems that he would at least know that this naked march ("the walk") happens, even if he doesn't know why, and he's equally terrified about what's going to happen to _him and his cadre_ now that it's their turn. If I were reworking this piece, I would make that clear.

         What happens at that point goes even more Wrong. The kids are huddled into a dark (not pitch-black, but dark) room, large, musty. Bester already knows the whole thing is Wrong - he wonders if the Grins have gone insane, he wonders if this some kind of horrible plot perpetuated by mundanes to torment them, and he vows that when Psi Cops find out about this, they would make whoever was behind it _pay_.

         Then the teachers, still in their costumes, show up and telepathically assault the children _en masse_. Al, like Brett and some of the others, are P12s, and are stronger than the teachers and could block the assault - _but they don't_ \- and this is when the purpose of the brutal, and increasingly random scans over the years becomes clear. Bester starts to defend himself, and then drops his defenses and lets the assault happen, because "no one was allowed to challenge the Grins." Never. Even though he knows this is totally Wrong. The kids just _freeze_.

         Finally after perhaps a few minutes of this mass telepathic humiliation ritual, Bester finally snaps and starts screaming at the teachers to stop, and the other kids, one by one, follow his lead and start screaming and fighting back. The teachers flip on the lights and take off their costumes, and the whole cadre is going WHAT THE EVER-LOVING FUCK when they see their teachers standing there.

         Because this should have been obvious, even though of course it couldn't be.

         And because it's Wrong in every conceivable way.

         But then it gets worse. The teachers try to excuse this bizarre abusive ritual in the name of the values of the Corps. They start telling the kids how special they are to have been raised in the Corps from an early age, some of them having manifested not only early - before puberty - but practically from birth. You're _Cadre Prime_. You're _special_. Laters will never understand what it means to be in the Corps the way you do.

         (Yes, but it doesn't take _ritualized child abuse_ to teach children the same thing! I mean, it can give the cadre collective PTSD and unify them as "survivors," but how does this make them better, future leaders of the Corps...?)

         The teachers then ask the students to telepathically assault them in the same way that they just assaulted the students, under the "reasoning" that by doing so, they become the "adults" in the relationship and in the Corps, and the teachers become the "children," since all telepaths are equally children of the Corps.

         The students (dutifully, furiously) participate in the assault of their teachers - except for Bester, who stands there in shock, refusing to participate, going WHAT THE FUCK at the whole thing.

         (The teachers are trying to make a valid point about life and roles in the Corps, but they're distorting it.)

         You see, there is a difference between the beliefs, values and ideology of a culture (religion, people, etc.) and what the _humans who represent that belief system_ actually do. This happens in any country - there's the values the country stands for, even if its elected leaders and the people who live in that country don't always live up to those ideals. Things always go wrong in any society, somewhere. This is one such moment in the Corps.

         For a somewhat different example, in any religious community where child sexual abuse occurs, there is a disconnect between the _ideals_ of the religion, what it's supposed to be about, between _God_ , and what the humans who represent God are actually doing. God is perfect - humans are not. You can try to hide your sins under the mantle of holiness, but it's just vile child abuse. This is not to say the religion itself, and what it stands for, is wrong or bad - it means that human fail.

         I've searched up and down for a term for this distinction (one that generalizes to both the religious and the secular) - the distinction between the "perfect" ideal, and the imperfect humans who represent that ideal in this world. Everyone reading this knows I am diligent with my research, but I was unable to find such a term. I will still keep looking, but perhaps one doesn't exist.

         It is this lesson that Bester takes from the abusive ritual. Not merely "these adults who raised me and nurtured me also abused me and betrayed me, so I can never trust another human being again." Oh no, it's a lot deeper than that: the realization is that the _ideals_ of the Corps may be perfect and correct - he never questions that - but the humans who represent the Corps are just that - human. Flawed.

         The teachers had been the Grins all along - they'd lied. The teachers had claimed that this brutal ritual (about "violating" each other so the children can become "adults" and the adults can become "children") was in line with the values of the Corps, but it's not - it's a distortion. Even if they believed what they said, even if they couched the abuse in the values of the Corps, they had still "betrayed" the students.

         (And even the director, who set this up, who approved of it - he had, in a sense, betrayed the children, too, whatever his reasons had been.)

         The teachers aren't "the Corps," Bester realizes. The director himself isn't "the Corps," either. No individual human beings are "the Corps."

         And while the values of the Corps itself are sacrosanct, no individual human being can ever be fully trusted, he realizes. Only the Corps can be trusted. Anyone can lie. Anyone can betray you.

\-----

(Deadly Relations, p. 37)

         But then he caught something, a presence - watching. Approving. The director?

         It didn't matter, because he suddenly understood. The teachers weren't in charge, any more than he was. The _Corps_ was mother and father, not any of the individuals in it. Teacher Hua's words began to make more sense.

         When it was over, they were given black robes to wear, and more important - gloves. Al pulled his on, felt them close about his fingers. Gloves, at long last.

         He was no longer a child.

         Teacher Hua had said a lot, some of which Al understood, some of which he did not. But the thing he understood most clearly of all was something Teacher Hua had _not_ said. It was a very simple thing, really, something he should have known all along.

         Adults were no different from kids. They were not to be trusted, not as individuals. Teacher Hua could not be trusted. Ms. Chastain, despite all of her kindness, could not be trusted.

         Only the Corps itself could be trusted, and only the Corps itself - its laws, its institutions, its entirety - deserved his loyalty.

         He trusted the Corps. He would never trust another human being again.

(Deadly Relations, p. 265, when Bester is in his sixties)

         In the end, perhaps, his mistake was to rely on individuals to provide him any personal sense of worth. It was ironic, really - the first true lesson that the Corps had taught him, only now revealing the depths of its truthfulness.

\-----

         What he does not consider, as he is only thirteen, is whether the same principle could ever apply to him as well - he, too, is human, after all. He can strive always to be perfect, always to be the best, but is that possible? And if so, at what cost?

         And what he does not consider, because it's _unthinkable_ , is what would come about if the Corps were ever _destroyed_. What would "morality" even mean, if God were dead?

 

[1] The hazing ritual/graduation scene scene in canon takes place around 2201. The Corps (as such) was started in 2156, and mere weeks later, Crawford was assassinated and Vacit took over.

Natasha Alexander was said to be one of the first in Cadre Prime, and given her age, it seems that Cadre Prime was started by Vacit, shortly after he became director.

That would make Cadre Prime only about 45 years old.

Since even Bester's oldest teachers themselves grew up in Cadre Prime, that places them in Natasha's age range. Teacher Hua is described as being the oldest, "a scrawny old man with a potbelly." Except since Cadre Prime is only 45 years old, the oldest he could possibly be is 57 (and if he describes himself as having grown up in Cadre prime, he's probably in his late 40s.)

(I'm explaining this apparently contradiction as 1) sloppy writing, since Keyes didn't pay very much attention to dates sometimes, and 2) the point-of-view of a twelve-year-old who has literally only seen one older person, Kevin Vacit (his grandfather), back when he (Bester) was only five. So Teacher Hua looks old.)

[2] It would be very easy to fool small children, even small children who were strong telepaths - many normal kids can't tell that Santa Claus is their dad, or are similarly fooled by other adults in costumes, even when the adults are close family members and their voices aren't disguised.


End file.
